Will App Payments put an end to shopping queues?

Contactless payments may be all the rage these days, but you still have tap your smartphone, smartwatch or card on a terminal of some kind.

And at busy times, this can mean standing in queues or hanging around for ages waiting for the restaurant bill to arrive.

All that could be about to change.

"Payments are vanishing inside apps," explains Dave Birch, a payments expert at Consult Hyperion. "That's where all the interesting stuff is going on." Take the Starbucks or Hailo apps for example. They let customers pay for products and services via apps linked to bank services - there's no need for physical interaction with a terminal at all. And at Starbucks, that means you don't have to join a queue for the till before you get your coffee.

Apple, Google and Samsung have all anticipated the significance of this and offer in-app payments via their own apps.

Read more on how new smart payment methods could save customers time in an interesting article by the BBC.